U.S. Pat. No. 4,823,662, by the inventor hereof, and assigned to the assignee of the present application, describes, in general, an apparatus in which a clamping carriage is provided, which controls feed of stock material to be severed, while also controlling removal of previously severed workpiece material. Additional hold-down clamps secure the stock material against a work table. The severing element is a circular saw. The clamping carriage, in addition to clamping and holding the stock material and feeding it to the saw should be as compact as possible and readily controllable. It is not sufficient that the clamping carriage can only push the rail or stock material in steps to the saw so that the required length of the rail or rod element can be cut; additionally, arrangements must be made to remove the cut workpieces and, if necessary, differentially removing them or sorting them with respect to length, whether they are desired workpieces or scrap, and the like. This removal and sorting should not interfere with the working cycle of the saw. Typically, the saw is a cold saw. It is also necessary that short scrap pieces have to be removed, which arise, for example, when a miter or bevel angle has to be changed between succeeding saw cuts. The clamping carriage also must feed the material down to its very end, so that it can be used as completely as possible with the least amount of remainder or scrap ends.
The apparatus of my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 4,823,662, to which German Patent 37 02 223 corresponds, can solve these problems. It has been found, however, that the apparatus is larger and more complex than desired, although special infeed clamping jaws are not required thereby.